Her Way
by Slash4Femme
Summary: Chapel and McCoy are never too old to plot revolutions.


_This is a fan fiction for Star Trek the classic series. It is not erotica but includes some more adult themes. The main characters are Head Nurse Christine Chapel and Dr. McCoy. The story takes place after the television series. This is hopeful the beginning of what will be a longer series of stories calls the Violet Brigade Reports, which will eventually include erotic material. Special thanks should go to Acidqueen for making me think, and for writing the Spock/McCoy pairing with such heart breaking tenderness, and to my mother who taught me to never take no for an answer and how to start revolutions._

Her Way

Christine Chapel walked down the halls of Star Fleet Academy fuming with righteous anger. For thirty year she had worked for Star Fleet, she had done her job and done it well, dressed in the horrible, demeaning, little uniforms, put up with the constant harassment from her male co-workers, been to the edges of the galaxy and back, kept her head in hundreds of emergency situations, and still managed to serve as head nurse on a major star ship. Now, however she was tired of it. Tired of the skimpy clothes, tired of the leering, and tired of having to be both a capable, responsible, Star Fleet officer and some kind of sex kitten. Chapel had been a Star Fleet officer for three decades she didn't need to put up with this any more. Thinks had to change.

A door opened with an automatic swish, and Chapel strode into one of the nicer of the officers' cafeterias. After a moment of scanning the room, she caught sight of the man she was looking for. Dr. Leonard McCoy sat at a table only larger enough for two, by one of the huge windows that looked down, hundreds of feet, to the ground level of Star Fleet Academy. He raised his glass of iced tea to her in a silent salute, as she approached the table and sat.

"Christine"

She smiled for the first time in hours.

"Good to see you Dr. it's been a while."

"Longer then I would have liked."

He smiled at her.

"But they just kicked me off the ship and made me come here to this depressing earthbound load of Star Fleet nonsense."

"I am" He rolled his eyes to emphasize his distasted "supposed to teach these children who've never even been off the planet, and probably don't know a lazar scalpel from a fazor rifle, how to be Star Fleet surgeons. And here I thought Jim always asked the impossible"

She laughed, happy to hear him sounding so much like himself, bringing back nostalgic memories of the good points about working on the Enterprise. She had always thanked the Gods that fate had allowed her to serve under McCoy, it could have been worse, so very much worse, if not for him.

She called her food up on the computer then leaned forward and folding her hands.

"Well since I'm here we might as well get down to busyness."

He frowned slightly and sipped his tea.

" I didn't used to think about the way women were treated on ships like the Enterprise, until I met you, I've done a lot of thinking over the years, about what you've said to me and my own behavior and I now realize that some things need to change. I'll do anything I can to help. You know that."

She nodded.

"This isn't just about what I want though, women aren't the only people treated badly my Star Fleet."

He looked down at the table slowly shredding the polythen-paper napkin in front of him.

" Don't know if I can go through with this"

His voice was low and slightly choked sounding.

"I've lived with it for years, decades even, no one the wiser. And I'm a Star Fleet officer, a high ranking one. I've spent most of my life building that up, I'm known, I'm respected. And they could take that all away from me, or worse, they could destroy my life, lock me up, God know what else. It's my whole life, and what am I really, outside of Star Fleet?"

He paused looking out the window; see something else inside his mind.

"I'd give it all up for Jim, for Spock, but this . . ."

He trailed off look blindly at the napkin he'd destroyed.

"I guess that makes my a coward"

He smiled ruefully up at her. She reached across the table and covered his clenched fists with her hand.

"Leonard"

Her voice was soft.

"Your not alone. There are many more people like you in Star Fleet. All they need is someone to take a stand, speak out, and they'll follow. You don't have to hide your life this way, you disserve more, and you've earned more. Star Fleet should do better by you, much better."

McCoy glanced down at her hand then again out the window, a hollow smile twisting across if face.

"People like me"

He repeated

"You mean fucking queers"

He sighed then his shoulders slumped like the energy had gone out of him suddenly.

Chapel leaned even further across the table trying to force him to make eye contact with her.

"Leonard, you are a gay man"

Her voice was quiet and soothing

"There's no shame in that, nothing wrong with it. You don't deserve to hide. You don't deserve to live in fear that Star Fleet will take you job way if they find out. It's who you are."

McCoy nodded slowly and picked up his cup of ice tea.

"Do you remember when I told you?"

He asked, his eyes had that far way look.

"I trusted you. You were the most sensible person I'd ever met, the best nurse I ever had, and I guess . . ."

He looked down at his ice tea

"I had less to loose with you. If I'd told Jim or Spock and they'd refused to have anything to do with me, it would have broken my heart"

She smiled at him

"For the longest time I thought you where interested in me. The way you used to flirt"

He chuckled softly

"Ah yes, flirt with all the pretty girls, the oldest trick in the book, plus wishful thinking on my part. Thinking that maybe if I tried hard enough I would make myself stop thinking of men and find women attractive instead."

He downed the last of his ice tea in a gulp.

"But then again wishful thinking is what got me married in the first place, and look what a disaster that was"

"Although you did get a daughter out of it"

He smiled

"There is that"

Chapel took a bite her salad.

"So are you with me Dr.? Ready to fight this one together?"

The doctor stared out the window again.

"I've never been the brave man in any situation"

He said, and then shrugged.

"But why not try something new before I die?"

Chapel smiled.

"If we don't get more people involved within a month of starting this"

She told him.

"I swear to you, you can end it."

He nodded, then reached out and took her hand with his.

"Alright, lets do this thing. Time to fight the good fight and all that damned nonsense"

Chapel smiled. So it had begun. She had played by their rules for over thirty years, but that time was over. Things where going to change.


End file.
